The Prairie Fire Organizing Committee is an American far left organization that evolved from the Weather Underground. Origins In 1974, the Weather Underground released the book Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-imperialism. Since the Weather Underground was engaged in illegal bombings and its leaders were fugitives, it required help from aboveground supporters to distribute the book; participants in this work included Van Lydegraf and Jennifer Dohrn. Over 40,000 copies were distributed. Discussion groups were created to discuss the issues that arose from the book. This above ground organizing is how the Prairie Fire Distribution Committee was created, which in 1975 became the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee. The book's preparation was a 12-month process. It was written collaboratively and adopted as the collective statement of the Weather Underground. Mark Rudd stated that the book "was an attempt to influence the movement that we had abandoned back in 1969. It tried to reach many thousands of New Leftist and former New Leftists by saying "'Don't despair, we're all part of the same thing'". Bill Ayers explains that Prairie Fire "was an attempt to sum up our thinking since the 'Weatherman' paper and especially since the townhouse. Through it we hoped to consolidate our political organization and to forge unity with progressive activist". Ayers is referring to the 1970 Greenwich Village townhouse explosion which killed 3 members of Weatherman, Diana Oughton, Theodore Gold, and Terry Robbins. Ideology Prairie Fire Organizing Committee regards American imperialism as the main enemy of the world's people, a position it initially took in contradiction to the Communist Party of China's critique of Soviet imperialism. They claim a long history of fighting for rights of all people and opposes white supremacy in all its forms, believing that it persists through practices such as racial profiling. They call attention to prisoners it deems political and state, "We know that close to 100 women and men are in U.S. prisons because they have dared to struggle for the liberation of oppressed peoples". The group's members are typically activists fighting U.S. imperialism. Their work proceeds from the premise that, while the U.S. remains in the global position that it currently occupies, there will be no freedom or peace for anyone. The book Prairie Fire was explicitly feminist, based on an understanding that success of imperialism relied on the oppression of women. One result of this point of view was the creation